Insider Exclusive: The Economic Impact of Chartered Buses

Imagine you are traveling with your family to a Florida vacation resort. With every stop, you and your relatives buy gas, food, souvenirs, or stay at a motel. The money you generate gives a boost to the economy at each small town you visit. Many of the tiny dots on the map of Florida represent towns that rely on tourist dollars to survive. By visiting, you are enhancing the lives of dozens of people.

Now, imagine that same scenario with not a car of passengers, but a busload of them with each person visiting shops, dining, sightseeing, and booking a night at a hotel. The economic generation for a party that size can literally keep businesses alive. ABA member Pegasus Transportation, with offices in Orlando, Miami, and Fort Lauderdale, shares these interesting statistics on how bus travel impacts the economy:

Companies that supply motorcoach services within cities employ an average of 50 people per city, with an average base pay of $22,000 a year, money that supports the workers as well as the local economy.

Motorcoach tourism was responsible for an average of $161.9 million in economic activity for areas where the transportation hubs were located.

If you believe motorcoaches are gas-guzzling behemoths, consider the average bus carrying 50 passengers alleviates at least 10 separate vehicles from the road. With an average of 239 passenger miles per gallon of diesel fuel, motorcoach travel exceeds trains, planes, and other automobiles in fuel economy. Fewer vehicles equate to fewer road and infrastructure repairs, saving cities and counties revenue on road maintenance.

A report from the Texas Transportation Institute estimated annual motorcoach travel saves 303,000 gallons of fuel, more than 55,000 hours of wasted travel time, and $8.8 million in automobile and infrastructure maintenance.

With motorcoach group travel, not only are you receiving discounted rates on restaurants, hotels, cruises, theme park tickets, and shopping, you are stimulating local and state economies to provide a bigger impact for tourists in years and decades to come.

Reprinted from PegasusNews, April 22, 2016. Used with permission. Visit www.pegasusbus.com. To read their latest blogs, click here.

Pegasus is Florida’s one-stop shop for group travel, providing a blend of logistical planning, 24/7-dispatch service, GPS tracking, and professional driving personnel all dedicated to passenger safety.

About the American Bus Association

The American Bus Association (ABA) is the trade organization of the intercity bus industry, with more than 1,000 motorcoach and tour company members in the United States and Canada. Its members operate charter, tour, regular route, airport express, special operations and contract services. Another 2,800 members are travel and tourism organizations and suppliers of bus products and services who work in partnership with the North American motorcoach industry.